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What's New in Library Search: Primo VE & Rapido

Launching May 19, 2025, this guide includes information about new features, changes to library search, and our new Interlibrary loan tool, Rapido.

Saved Searches and Search History - Save before May 19, 2025

How to save your Saved Searches: Save items to favorites/Saved Records

  1. Login and navigate to your Saved Searches.
  2. Create a screenshot of your Saved Searches if you wish to preserve your search strands.
  3. If there are items in your Saved Searches that you would like to bookmark:
    • Open desired Saved Search
    • For any resource you with to save to favorites (Saved Records), click on the pin located to the top right of the record: 

                         

 

How to save your Saved Searches: Export as an RIS file to a citation manager

  1. Log in and go to Saved Searches. 
  2. Select the search for which you would like like to export the resources
  3. Select the arrow to the right of the number of results and change to "50 per page"
  4. Select the checkbox at the top left to choose all resources on the page
  5. Select the 3 dots at the top right of the results bar to open export options
  6. Select "Export RIS"
  7. Select "Download" and then open the file on your computer to add to your preferred citation manager 

        
Please note: if you have more than 50 results, you will need to export multiple pages in order to capture all of your resources. You will repeat the above steps with the additional resources.

New Journal Search

Step 1: Navigate to the Journal Search Page
From the library homepage or main navigation menu, select "Find a journal." This will take you directly to the dedicated journal search interface.

Screenshot of the University of Arizona Libraries search interface. At the top, a blue navigation bar includes options such as "THIS IS PRIMO VE," "Research Assistant," "New search," "A-Z Databases," and "Find a journal" (highlighted with a red box). Below, there is a search bar with a microphone icon and green magnifying glass icon, offering options to search for "All," "Books," "Articles," "Videos," and "Images." A section below titled "What's included in my search?" explains the content scope of the search tool.

Step 2: View Categories on the Left Panel
Journals are now organized by broad academic disciplines. Categories such as Arts, Architecture & Applied Arts, Business & Economics, and Health & Biological Sciences appear on the left side of the screen.

Screenshot of the "Find a journal" page on the University of Arizona Libraries website. The top navigation bar includes options such as "New search," "A-Z Databases," and "Find a journal." Below, there is a journal search bar labeled "Journal Search" with a field to enter a title or ISSN and a green search icon. On the left side, there is a "Journals by category" menu with expandable options including categories like Arts, Business, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Health Sciences, and more. In the center, a box titled "Search for journals" provides instructions: users can either enter a journal title in the search box or browse journals by category.

Step 3: Expand a Category to View Subcategories
Click the small triangle next to any category to reveal subject-specific areas (e.g., expanding Visual Arts reveals subfields like Photography, Drawing & Illustration, etc.).

Screenshot of the "Journals by category" section on the University of Arizona Libraries journal search page. The category "Arts, Architecture & Applied Arts" is expanded, revealing subcategories such as "Architecture," "Arts & Crafts," "Fine Arts - General," "Gardens, Landscape Architecture & Parks," and "Visual Arts." The "Visual Arts" subcategory is also expanded, displaying additional options including "Decorative Arts," "Drawing, Design & Illustration," "Painting," "Photography," "Print Media," "Sculpture," and "Visual Arts - General." Red boxes highlight the dropdown arrows used to expand these categories.

Step 4: View and Select Journals Within a Subcategory
Once a subcategory is selected, a list of relevant journals will appear. Each entry includes:

  • Journal title and publication information
  • Access status (online or physical location)
  • Availability details

Screenshot of the University of Arizona Libraries journal search page displaying results for the "Photography" category under "Visual Arts." The left panel shows the "Journals by category" menu, with "Arts, Architecture & Applied Arts" and its subcategory "Visual Arts" expanded. "Photography" is selected and highlighted in teal. The main section lists three journal results: 35 mm photography (1959), available at the Center for Creative Photography. Afterimage (1972), marked as peer-reviewed, with availability both at the Center for Creative Photography and online. Album (London: 1970) (1970–), also available at the Center for Creative Photography. Each journal entry includes icons for linking, emailing, and saving.

With Primo VE, the Journal Search experience is evolving:

Old System Primo VE
Alphabetical (A–Z) browsing   Discipline-based filtering, faceted search  
Static journal lists Dynamic, searchable discovery interface

 

What This Means for You

You can now use discipline filters to narrow your search (e.g., Education, Engineering).
*ExLibris recently announced that they will be adding back the A-Z option because of user requests. 

Step 1: Use the Journal Search Box
On the Journal Search page, type the full or partial journal title or an ISSN into the search box.

Screenshot of the University of Arizona Libraries journal search page showing the predictive search feature in use. The user has typed "Journal of Ling" into the search bar, and a dropdown menu displays suggested journal titles. Visible suggestions include: Journal of Linguistic and Literary Studies Journal of linguistic anthropology Journal of linguistic geography Journal of linguistic research Journal of linguistics and language teaching: JLLT On the left, the "Journals by category" section is visible with several main categories collapsed, including "Arts, Architecture & Applied Arts," "Business & Economics," and "Earth & Environmental Sciences."

Step 2: Select From Auto-Suggestions or Submit the Search
You may click a suggestion from the dropdown list or press Enter to view full results.

Step 3: Review Results and Access Options
Each result includes journal details, peer review status, and access links. Online access is labeled clearly.

Screenshot of the University of Arizona Libraries journal search results page for the query "Journal of linguistic anthropology." The top section shows the search term in the input box. The results section displays one result: Journal of linguistic anthropology (Online), published by the Society for Linguistic Anthropology (U.S.), established in 1991. The journal is marked as peer-reviewed and is available online. Below the title are links for online access and viewing journal contents. On the left, the "Journals by category" menu is visible with several categories collapsed, such as "Arts, Architecture & Applied Arts" and "Business & Economics."

Primo Research Assistant AI Tool

What is the Research Assistant?
The Research Assistant in Primo VE is a generative AI tool that helps users explore academic topics using natural language questions. It analyzes search results from the Ex Libris Central Discovery Index (CDI) and presents a concise summary based on up to five relevant articles.

This tool is designed to make the research process more intuitive, especially for those unfamiliar with advanced search techniques.
*Users must be signed in to use Research Assistant.

What is it useful for?

  • Formulating and refining research questions.
  • Quickly identifying key sources on a topic.
  • Getting a summarized overview of the current academic discussion.
  • Discovering new search terms or directions for exploration.
  • Reviewing sources with in-line citations linked to each summary.

What is it not useful for?

  • Writing complete essays, literature reviews, or assignments.
  • Replacing in-depth research or critical evaluation of sources.
  • Providing detailed analysis beyond article metadata and abstracts.

What is not included in the search?
The Research Assistant pulls results from the Central Discovery Index (CDI), but not all databases are included. The following are excluded:

  • APA PsycNet
  • Elsevier (including ScienceDirect)
  • JSTOR
  • DataCite
  • Conde Nast

Excluded content types:

  • News sources (e.g., newspapers, newsletters)
  • Retracted or withdrawn articles

As a result, important content may be omitted from Research Assistant summaries and should be supplemented with standard search strategies.

Accessing the Research Assistant

  1. Log in with your university credentials in Primo VE.
  2. Click "Research Assistant" in the top navigation bar.
  3. Enter your question in natural language (e.g., “What are the environmental impacts of urban green spaces?”).
  4. Review the AI-generated summary and linked sources.
  5. Click "View All Results" to explore additional resources.

Additional Information and Tips
For a full guide, tips on effective use, examples, and best practices, visit:
Getting Started with Primo Research Assistant (ExLibris guide)

New features in Primo VE

New features in Primo VE


1. Additional Send To features: Export to Excel, QR code, social share, Mendeley, Export BibTeX, EasyBib

2. Material prefilters will be available under the search bar

 

3. Refined/modified navigation bar options 

 

4. Search Results Personalization - choose up to 5 disciplines

This allows results associated with disciplines to appear at the top of the search results - search results are the same, but order will be different based on disciplines chosen.

Changes in Primo VE

Primo VE (Library search) changes

1. Primo VE maintenance: Primo VE will go down for maintenance for 1 hour in the early morning hours during the weekend. During this time, Primo VE will NOT be available to our patrons. A banner will appear on our main webpage to let users know of the unavailability timeframe.

2. Availability counts assigned to resource types will not be available when we launch Primo VE. ExLibris has reported that these counts are inaccurate, however there is a preference to keep these in place for our users. Our Primo team is working on a solution to bring these counts back, but will not be available for the launch.